45 Seconds… Installation Maquette

In his feedback report on my 45 Seconds… work my tutor Jesse suggested that I try to mock up a maquette of how I might show the work. I have pondered on how to do this and my researches lead me to a simple, free 3d CAD tool offered by Google. The software is called SketchUp. I have only had time to scratch the surface of what it can do, but have gained enough skills to produce a scaled installation view of how an exhibition of the photographs would look. For the sake of this work I have used a room sized 6 x 6 metres approximately 2.5 metres in height. This is a pretty small gallery space but I don’t expect to be showing the photographs at a major gallery!!!!  I have included a figure in the space to illustrate scale.

My thinking as expressed in my Artist’s Statement was: “By using pairs of photographs I was hoping to engage an instant reaction from the viewer of ‘why has the photographer/artist presented two identical photographs?’. On closer inspection this would be shown not to be the case encouraging the viewer to scrutinise the portraits in greater detail to spot the differences. This should challenge the viewer to analyse their process of looking and to think about their personal response to photographic portraits.’ This meant that:

1. For each diptych the photographs should be placed close to one another and at a distance from the other diptychs to enable the viewer to isolate the pair in the gallery space and yet still look at the two portraits of a diptych at the same time. 
2. The photographs should be sufficiently large on the wall to command the attention of the viewer and to invite the viewer to survey the surface of the faces (as they might do for a landscape).
3. The eyes of the subjects in the portraits should be placed at normal eye level to prompt eye contact with the viewer. My own eye level is around 145 cm and I am shorter than the average. A height of about 160-165 cm should be about the right height.
4. Whilst I want the viewers to engage with each diptych I also want them to react to the work as a whole. I feel that the best way to do this is to place the diptychs at the same height on three/four(?) walls of a gallery. This would mean that the viewer could survey all of the faces from a central point in the room. This should make the viewer feel that are being looked at from all directions.

In my first mock up, I inserted photographs at A2 size – this is the size I will be submitting for assessment. My impression was that they were not as imposing as I wanted. I really want the faces to grab the attention of the viewer. I then tried photographs at A1 size (approx.) which is the maximum size I believe I can print without having to have higher resolution drum scans made or large traditional prints produced. This is much more effective and achieved the impact I had visualised. Clearly what I might be prepared to pay for producing the prints would depend on where they would be shown and if this event is a just a one-off. Printing and mounting 20 A1 using digital c-types and mounting on aluminium could cost as much as £3000!!

Here is the SketchUp mock-up of a possible installation. The photographs are displayed in diptych pairs as I had envisaged will be placed on all walls of the gallery with the portrait subjects eyes at the viewer’s eye level.